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HOSACK’S FOLLY

Name: HOSACK’S FOLLY
Author: Gillen D’Arcy Wood
ISBN: 1-59051-162-X

A NOVEL OF OLD NEW YORK

by Gillen D’Arcy Wood ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2005

Only adequate as fiction, Wood’s first brings to life a bygone age with such vigor—and points out the relevance of its...

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The planning of New York’s Croton Aqueduct and a yellow fever outbreak make up the historical backdrop for Australian-born Wood’s debut.

In the roiling, politically corrupt Manhattan of 1824, newspaper editor Eamonn Casey’s visionary plan to construct an aqueduct that will bring millions of gallons of desperately needed fresh water to the city is possible only if he cuts a deal with Wall Street businessman John Laidlaw. And that deal means Casey must use the New York Herald to smear physician David Hosack, who warns that all shipping should be quarantined to prevent yellow fever from being imported from the West Indies. Dr. Hosack and his idealistic assistant, Albert Dash, who lost his entire family in the 1814 yellow-fever epidemic, battle the authorities’ obstinate refusal to close the port, but they can’t overcome the combination of Laidlaw’s old-money clout and Irishman-made-good Casey’s savvy manipulation of the popular press and of bare-knuckled Bowery-boy enforcers. Meanwhile, Casey’s daughter Virginia pines over Albert, who enjoys her intellectual companionship but is engaged to her best friend, Vera Laidlaw, a flighty actress. The improbability of a patrician New Yorker like Laidlaw allowing his daughter to appear on the stage is one of several weak strands in the story, which is far stronger on period detail and atmosphere, from marvelous descriptions of shopping on Broadway to grim ones of agonized fever victims in Hosack’s Bellevue Hospital. Fortunately, Wood is inspired enough by the historical material to make vivid Laidlaw’s financial skullduggery, Casey’s ethical quandary, and Hosack’s stiff-necked rectitude. The old men’s maneuvers are far more interesting than the young folks’ romantic difficulties and drive the narrative smartly toward the inevitable arrival of yellow fever, which clarifies both sides of the plot to almost everyone’s satisfaction.

Only adequate as fiction, Wood’s first brings to life a bygone age with such vigor—and points out the relevance of its conflicts with such intelligence—that readers with an interest in Old New York will readily forgive its failings.

Pub Date: April 19, 2005

ISBN: 1-59051-162-X

Page Count: 390

Publisher: Other Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WAKE OF HMS <i>CHALLENGER</i>
by Gillen D’Arcy Wood

- BOOK REVIEW
LAND OF WONDROUS COLD
by Gillen D’Arcy Wood

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).

Pub Date: July 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-345-45071-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.